"True enough, my dear fellow," answered the Baronet, looking somewhat alarmed; "if I had not sold, as you advised, I should have been 'done' that time, and I confess in all probability--" "ruined," the Baronet was going to say, but he checked himself, and substituted the expression, "much hampered now."
"Well, Sir Harry," resumed his friend, "you and I are men of the world; we all know the humbug fellows talk about friendship and all that. It would be absurd for us to converse in such a strain, but yet a man has his likes and dislikes. You are one of the few people I care for, and I will do for you what I would not do for any other man on earth."
Sir Harry stared. Though by no means a person of much natural penetration, he had yet an acquired shrewdness, the effect of long intercourse with his fellow-creatures, which bade him as a general rule to mistrust a kindness; and he looked now as if he scented a quid pro quo in the generous expressions of his associate.
Ropsley kept his cold grey eye fixed on him, and proceeded--"I have already said, I am a 'man of straw,' and if I go it matters little to any one but myself. They will ask after me for two days in the bow-window at White's, and there will be an end of it. I sell out, which will not break my heart, as I hate soldiering; and I start quietly for the Continent, where I go to the devil my own way, and at my own pace. Festina lente; I am a reasonable man, and easily satisfied. You will allow that this is not your case."
Poor Sir Harry could only shuffle uneasily in his chair, and bow his acquiescence.
"Such being the state of affairs," proceeded Ropsley, and the hard grey eye grew harder than ever, and seemed to screw itself like a gimlet into the Baronet's working physiognomy; "such being the state of affairs, of course any sacrifice I make is offered out of pure friendship, regard, and esteem for yourself. Psha! it's nonsense talking like that! My dear fellow, I like you; I always have liked you; the pleasantest hours of my life have been spent in your house, and I'll see you out of this scrape, if I ruin myself, stock, lock, and barrel, for it!"
Sir Harry flushed crimson with delight and surprise; yet the latter feeling predominated more than was pleasant, as he recollected the old-established principle of himself and his clique, "Nothing for nothing, and very little for a halfpenny."
"Now, Sir Harry, I'll tell you what I will do. Five thousand will clear us for the present. With five thousand we could pay off the necessary debts, take up that bill of Sharon's, and get a fresh start. When they saw we were not completely floored, we could always renew, and the turn of the tide would in all probability set us afloat again. Now the question is, how to get at the five thousand? It will not come out of Somersetshire, I think?"
Sir Harry shook his head, and laughed a hard, bitter laugh. "Not five thousand pence," he said, "if it was to save me from hanging to-morrow!"
"And you really do not know which way to turn?"